Been with Vodafone/OneNZ for nearly 5 years on a fibre plan which has just worked. About two weeks ago on the 24th of Feb 2025 after a short call to One NZ for a technical matter for clarification I was told the Ultrahub was out dated and not supported I should purchase one of there Deco Units as a replacement.
After a quick factory reset the Ultrahub was working fine and all my network stuff was happy. The words of DOOM and persuasion kept running in my head. So on the 5th March 2025 I ordered one through a One NZ Store and on the 6th It arrived on the doorstep, Later on in the afternoon I opened the package and was shocked that this unit seems to be marked dsl modem.
On the 7th with Many questions and a lot of bad google searches for the answers to a simple question neither One NZ or TP-link had any useful documentation on web sites made for the hard of vision A phone call was made to One NZ after a hour talking to many help staff on the phone the answer was given also they seamed to think it was faulty and I should take it back to the shop at this point I had not opened the box.
So later on in the after noon after rearranging my network cables so my network would still function after the install of the Deco so for the first 1/4 hour was a nightmare using a app to set up the Deco. I was testing using my laptop on cat6 cable for isolation reasons and it seamed to work ok? the network addresses where strange, back to the app and I was able to change the ip to the original Ultrahub.
So it was safe to hook up the rest of the network, then the nightmare begun the unit had a strange Subnet mask something much bigger than a class C network address space. I found this when trying to point the DNS server to my Pi-Hole and to use the DHCP functions of the same Pi-Hole. An added insult there was no way I could get the phone to work there was a disconnected tone but nothing else it could not ring out and be called. So for about 3/4's of an hour with an app that was buggy that could not make the router reboot or save configuration changes. I gave up after reading the reviews of the app and reinstalled the Ultrahub.
This morning the 8th March I wanted to see how the unit may work in a different mode. Another 10 mins of fluffing with the app, it was trying to connect to the old setup. In the end I now have two setups in the app. It worked Ok as a access point, with out any outstanding features.
So it is the Fisher Price my first wifi or a router with "training wheels" and the phone did not work with it I took it back to the One NZ shop. To add insult to injury I now have to pay a cancellation fee just to hand back the Deco that does not work as needed and does not let my phone work that we are paying for. This is after paying for a courier fee to get the Deco in the first place Do I feel ripped off yes I do.
I am planing on Monday taking this device back to One NZ office at smalls farm, it is how a company deals with its problems is how you see how good they are and my thoughts are Run away! Change company....
Suggestions?